New to Vera 2, configuring GE 45600 remote controller

Apps & Remote Access
21

I don’t think you are following me exactly … and, yes, I have read every thread dealing with GE/Jasco 45600 and 45601. wscannell is explaining to Michele how to set vera scenes triggered by the 45600 scene commands.

Although I do not have the 600 (I use the 601s), I assume thatthey work in a similar manner. Once you pair the remote with Vera, you create scenes for each ON button (only 1-9 work with Vera).

Create an event in the scene with the Remote device, a scene is activated, and the scene number the same as the button number you want to use. Set any commands that you want to control in the scene.

If you are turning on switches or lamp modules with the scene, repeat the pairing of the remote. This sends commands to make the remote turn on (or off) the devices directly. (This is the only way to get the scene OFF buttons to work.

Note that you do not have to do this repairing of the remote until all your scenes are done.

Then Michele responds…

Great - that sounds encouraging. So let me see if I understand this. I used "Add Zwave device -> remote control" in UI4 to create a Scene Controller device. I hit the Setup -> code 967 buttons on the GE and got two green LED blinks, so that seems to have worked. Vera shows the GE on the Dashboard.

Next I created a new scene in UI4.

In the Events tab for the new scene I added one event (“office light on”).

Then I clicked Edit and for Device I selected the GE remote, for Event Type I chose “A scene is actrivated” and for “scene number” I typed 1.

In the Commands tab I selected Office for the room.

Then under the Advanced tab for the “Scene is active” pulldown, I chose “when all devices in the scene are properly set”. Then for “Pick a device” I chose “office light”.

Then under the GE remote menu I chose “Reconfigure”. (Is this complicated enough yet?)

Then I closed the GE remote icon and clicked Save in UI4. No error messages.

Then I pressed “Scene” on the GE remote and got one red blink. Then I pressed “1” and got two green blinks, but the office light did not come on. What am I missing here? Thanks.

But what Michele was attempting in her post, if it had worked correctly, was to create an event that sends a reconfigure command to the light when the scene was triggered. Note she was hitting scene 1 ON on the remote.

The solution to her problem is that she simply needed to select the lights she wanted on for her scene 1. We’ve worked all that out in the recent thread.

Now for my issue…

Assume my scene turns on a bunch of things in the office like the office light and the computer power strip. I can already do this by touching scene 1 ON on my remote. And I can easily touch scene 1 OFF to turn off the scene.

But addition, what I want to do to is to turn on just the light when I hit light 1 ON on the remote, turn on just the power strip by pressing light 2 ON, etc. I don’t want to eat up scene buttons, but the set of light and group commands on the remote.

Observation:
The 45600 remote only seems to be sending things for scene 1 ON/OFF through 9 ON/OFF. It does not send anything for light 1 ON/OFF through 9 ON/OFF nor does it send anything for group 1 ON/OFF through 9 ON/OFF

How do other, more complicated remotes get programmed with Vera? How are they programmed to turn on and off a single device? How do they create and deal with groups?

22

??? Thought I was. I took @Michele’s original problem statement …

[quote=“Michele, post:6, topic:167952”][…] but now I can’t program any lights to the remote.
[…] but the GE just won’t pair to any devices.[/quote]
… to mean: programming individual devices (i.e. light 1 ON etc.), as opposed to programming scenes (although it appears @Michele was not aware of the scene programming, brought up by @wscannell, and was happy to learn about that.).

My responses dealt with programming individual devices; and I think both @Michele and I therefore responded ‘no’ to your question.

23

oTi@
Yes, you are correct in the individual device thread Michele posted.

After looking at my configuration file at http://<>:49451/data_request?id=user_data&output_format=xml it looks like all remote controls except for the minimote and a wall controller are being assigned a one-size fits all schema urn:schemas-micasaverde-com:device:SceneController:1 and D_SceneController1.xml device file. It’s clear that the configurations are not set-up to receive triggers/events for turning on and off a switch or dimming a dimmer, or a group of devices, or the thermostat (for the GE45601). It looks like device-specific plug-in could be written for the GE45600 and the GE45601 to look a variant of schema urn:schemas-micasaverde-com:device:SceneController:1 and D_SceneController1.xml device file, and call other schemas, device files and code to deal with the other events the devices must be capable of producing.

But I don’t quite understand yet why both the GE45600 and the GE45601 cannot be dimensioned properly to deal with the full set of 18 scenes. (1-9 and shift 1-9). I have not found how or where the remote gets its initial programming as it is included or updated.

I have defined scene 10 and 11 … but they don’t get loaded into the remote.

Button #4-on=4 Living RM - Evening TV, Button #1-on=1 Master BR - Lights ON, Button #1-off=1 Master BR - Lights OFF, Button #4-off=4 Living RM - All OFF, Button #2-on=2 Loft - Lights ON, Button #2-off=2 Loft - Lights OFF, Button #3-on=3 Second BR - Lights ON, Button #3-off=3 Second BR - Lights OFF, Button #6-on=6 Kitchen and Hallway ON, Button #6-off=6 Kitchen and Hallway OFF, Button #5-on=5 Living RM - All ON, Button #5-off=5 Living RM - Dim, Button #7-on=7 Loft - Outlet ON, Button #7-off=Loft - Outlet OFF, Button #10-on=10 Patio - Lights ON, Button #11-on=11 Front Porch - Light ON,

How does it know to stop at Button #9?

24

The shifted scenes appear to work. I put an ‘off’ scene as #1, an ‘on’ scene as #10. Pressing ‘shift+1’ does turn the device on, pressing ‘1’ turns it off.

Does anyone know the corresponding scene numbers to the shifted set? 11-19? A1-A9?
It's consecutive, so 10-18 (which perhaps is not very intuitive, given the labeling of the keys), which follows the default GE scene designators.

This was with a 45601; have not tried the 45600.

25

Just to clear up any confusion, what I was originally trying to do was simply pair individual lights to buttons on the GW/Jasco 45600 remote by holding the remote next to each device and programming buttonsdirectly just like I can do with my Homeremote HA09 remote.

However, I was never able to get that to work. Then it was pointed out to me that you could achieve the same effect of controlling lights with the GE remote by configuring scenes on Vera and then activating them with the GE remote. That did work, but it’s still only a work-around.

I’d prefer not to have to do it that way, but the GE remote controls 18 devices and the HA09 only controls 6, so whatever it takes to use the GE, I guess.

26

I got a 45600 recently. Quite an adventure!

One quirk that cost a bit of time is the fact that Vera will take care of non-zwave devices that are part of a scene IF the scene is assigned to the ON part of the remote’s button. If a scene has non-zwave devices and is assigned to the OFF button, the remote will be expected to take care of the entire scene. The remote only handles zwave devices. Consequently, any non-zwave devices will remain unmodified. Drove me crazy until I figured that out!

To reverse such a mixed protocol scene, I had to assign the scene to another ON button. Not particularly intuitive, but it does seem to work. Now I can fully deactivate a scene that has zwave, X10 AND INSTEON components. That nuance might be missed if most scenes only involve zwave devices. I suppose there is a good reason for that behavior. I just haven’t read one yet.

I also take it that there is no existing means to map individual Vera devices to the buttons on the remote, short of making the remote the primary, assigning devices to the remote’s buttons and then transferring that info back to Vera as the remote’s secondary controller? That sounds a bit frightening. Has anyone actually done what was recommended by oTi@ and had it work out?

27

The functionality of the OFF button is pre-determined by the remote, i.e. it turns off anything the ON button turned on. As this is a feature of the remote, it will only work for devices that the remote knows how to talk to (i.e. definitely Z-Wave only, and then only things like lighting devices / appliance modules / outlets). The reason Vera can’t take over for the remote, is that there is no way to communicate to Vera which OFF button was pressed.

I also take it that there is no existing means to map individual Vera devices to the buttons on the remote, short of making the remote the primary, assigning devices to the remote's buttons and then transferring that info back to Vera as the remote's secondary controller? That sounds a bit frightening. Has anyone actually done what was recommended by oTi@ and had it work out?
I haven't looked into it further, i.e. doing a straight [i]controller shift[/i] from Vera to a 45600, and then back. (I suspect I'd just restore a backup made just before shifting the primary role from Vera to the remote.)
28

Is there a danger that restoring info from a backup would overwrite the info just transferred from the 45600? Seems like it might, but then, I’m quite new at all this. Lots to learn.

Even though I’ve just started, I’m reluctant to risk losing what’s been gained so far. I’ve already got a sobering amount of time invested in setting this thing up. I’d hate to have to start over.

I’ve looked at the backup. It appears to be binary and/or encrypted. Consequently, I can’t tell what is and is not contained in that sucker. If I could verify it’s contents, I’d be much bolder. And I’d be even bolder still if there were a report or two that someone had actually given this a try and lived to tell the tale.

The carrot in this scenario is that these items are going for about $6@ on Amazon right now. That’s an irresistible price for a Z wave remote, even if there are quirks that need to be overcome/lived with.

29

I have to agree with other poster’s frustration with the UI. I am a new user and cannot believe how unintuitive that UI5 is. I have a couple of GE/Jasco 45600 remotes and didn’t even know it was possible to transfer scenes from MCV/UI5 to them. Just try to find anything in the MIOS documentation related to this. Thank goodness for the forum. After spending a lot of time reading through posts on the topic, I gave it a go and finally figured out how to do it. The hardest part was trying to figure out where you setup the Trigger (Event). It’s nicely buried. The problem with this procedure is that you will lose your LIGHT and GROUP data from the remote. They can be added afterward, but what a pain if you have to do this every time you want to transfer scenes. Since you lose that data anyway, resetting the remote is the best way to avoid introducing problem. So, here’s the procedure I followed for transferring scenes from MCV Vera2 / UI5 to GE/Jasco 45600 remote.

NOTE: There was a bug reported by automator.app, “UI5: Scene Controller Running Wrong Scene” ([url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=9177.0]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=9177.0[/url]), that is still present, making this whole procedure pretty useless.

WARNING: This procedure will remove all settings from your 45600 remote including LIGHT and GROUP info.

Clear Remote and Include/Pair it to MCV:
Delete the 45600 from UI5 if you have previously included it. Also delete any scenes using it that you might have previously created.
45600: SETUP until both LEDs flash twice then enter 969
Devices > Add Devices > Advanced Z-Wave devices/Add
In the “battery operated handheld remotes” section, select “Add one”
“Command was sent”/Close
Immediately on 45600: Hold SETUP until both LEDs flash twice then enter 967 (Green LED starts flashing rapidly)
Watch the progress in the Info Panel at the top/middle of the window (scroll up). You can accomplish the same thing by using the Z-wave button on the back.

Create Scene:
Automation > New scene
Give scene a name where the text entry box says “New scene”, leave the next box as “Immediate”, and select a room if you’d like.
Configure the Lights as you’d like them to be for the scene.
Click “Confirm changes” then “Save” (upper right)
On “Save data” screen, click “Continue”

Create Trigger:
Automation > Scenes
Click the settings “wrench” for the desired scene
At the top of the screen, select “Triggers”
“Add trigger”
Device dropdown: select the name of your remote control
What type of event is the trigger? Select “A scene is activated”
“Name for this trigger”: enter name of your choice
“Which scene number”: enter scene number for the button you’d like to use on the remote
Click “Confirm changes” then “Save” (upper right)
On “Save data” screen, click “Continue”

Send settings to remote (have it available):
Devices > Add Devices > Advanced Z-Wave devices/Add
In the “battery operated handheld remotes” section, select “Add one”
“Command was sent”/Close
Immediately on 45600: Hold SETUP until both LEDs flash twice then enter 967 (Green LED starts flashing rapidly)
Watch the progress in the Info Panel at the top/middle of the window (scroll up). You should see “Found an existing node” and “Transferring scenes” if the process works correctly. The procedure is complete when “Server busy” is displayed.

I think it might be easier to set-up scenes in the 45600 itself and forget about this transfer process.

30

Help!

It is not working for me. I can get the scenes to turn on but not off.

This is what I tried:

  1. Add device as a Z-Wave Device → hand held remote (secondary). Also used the wizard under the first option. It finds it no problem.

  2. I Create a seen for the on event with a trigger on a button. This works great.

  3. Repeat step 1.

No dice, the off event does not work. So I tried creating a scene for the off event by choosing “scene deactivation” under the trigger. Still no luck.

One thing I should mention is that the end device is actually an Insteon device. Using this method, I can get the device to turn on faithfully, but not turn off.

31

[quote=“nicksandoval, post:30, topic:167952”]It is not working for me. I can get the scenes to turn on but not off. […]
One thing I should mention is that the end device is actually an Insteon device.[/quote]
That’s important. The Off part is a feature of the remote, meaning its functionality is to turn any device in the scene off. As this is done by the remote itself, it will only work for devices that can be turned off by the remote (i.e., simply put: Z-Wave light and appliance modules). Vera is not involved in the off part and thus can’t turn off your Insteon device.

32

That is what I was fearing. Thanks for the fast response.

33

how to use the off function without vera?
Viorel

34

Does it use frequency 868,42 ?
( because as far as i know there are 2 different frequency’s used with z-wave

35

is there a way to dim lights using GE 45600?

36

Hi Anzz

After the remote has been properly paired with Vera the lights will dim (if you’re using a dimmer switch). Just press and hold the on or off keys for increasing or decreasing the light intensity.

Don

37

Hi Anzz

After the remote has been properly paired with Vera the lights will dim (if you’re using a dimmer switch). Just press and hold the on or off keys for increasing or decreasing the light intensity.

Don[/quote]

I am a bit lost on how do I set the scene for dimming ? If I write LUUP code to dim by 10% on scene activation, it partly works. I can increase the brightness, but not dim it.

Please help.

38

Hi Anzz

After the remote has been properly paired with Vera the lights will dim (if you’re using a dimmer switch). Just press and hold the on or off keys for increasing or decreasing the light intensity.

Don[/quote]

I am a bit lost on how do I set the scene for dimming ? If I write LUUP code to dim by 10% on scene activation, it partly works. I can increase the brightness, but not dim it.

Please help.[/quote]

Hi Anzz

Please see the follwoing documents:

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,10185.15.html

http://www.jascoproducts.com/support/manual-downloads/applications/DocumentLibraryManager/upload/45600-Manual-Eng.pdf

The dimming function should work correctly (including on and off) once the remote has been correctly configured (assuming that you are using a GE/JASCO dimming switch GE45612)

Don

39

I believe you would first include the remote into Vera’s Z-Wave network. And then assign the dimmer to a key on the remote, per the manual for the remote. No Vera scenes are used.

40

Are any of you successfully using this now on UI6? I just received my Vera Lite today and went to pair this 45600 remote and it doesn’t do anything other than join the network (all on/off works). I’ve followed quite a few different posts, including all the steps in this one, and the remote can’t pair again to receive the scene codes.

Curious if it’s a UI6 issue or not as I’ve come across a few posts where folks say it worked with these instructions until they got to UI6. Just curious if anybody has it working on a current version Vera Lite before I contact support.